Wheel Aligning at home - the guessing way

[gldgti]

I thought I'd share my experience gleaned from having my mk1 so long. i've paid for 2 wheel alignments on the car in: 100,000 km; 4 sets of tyres; 4 different strut configurations; more than 15 front strut removals; 2 minor accidents.

the first alignment i had was by a guy at an independant tyre shop in Taree. the owner is a vw enthusiast, and knew exactly what he was doing. alignment was perfect and i got 40,000km out of a set of 13" hankooks.

last alignment i got was from a well known tyre retailer in newcastle at hamilton. did an attrocious job, 2 new tyres ended up half worn out after only 4000km, car felt crap to drive.

I proceeded to learn how to do it myself.

I will post a kind of how to guide here. you can really only do this kind of work if you are willing to be patient, have a good eye and are good at judging your car's handling dynamics - just trying to be honest, i truely feel there are people out there that just wouldnt feel the difference.

so on with the show..

[gldgti]

small FWD cars are for most intents and purposes only adjustable on the front wheels. rear is usually fixed and will not be dealt with here.

most golfs i've ever dealt with have adjustable camber and toe.

1) camber is the angle that the plane of rotation of your wheel makes with the vertical (with respect to your car as a whole) so if your car is sitting unladen on a perfectly flat surface, camber would be measured as the angle between the plane of rotation of your wheel and 90 degrees from the ground.

you have two wheels at the front of your car.
a) NEGATIVE camber is when the distance between the tops of your front wheels is LESS that at the axle.
b) POSITIVE camber is when the distance between the tops of your front wheels is MORE than at the axle.

now, imagine looking down on your car from above, and you can see your wheels.

TOE IN is when the front of the wheels are CLOSER together than the back

TOE OUT is when the front of the wheels are FURTHER APART than the back

<<diagrams will be inserted at a later date, this is a WIP>>

Look at your tyres - where are they worn?

first, you need to be aware of what affects tyre wear. on our little, lightweight golfs, the most important factor is wheel alignment. tyre pressure is also important.

to get the pressures out of the way, a properly inflated tyre should wear fairly evenly across the tread. this is much more noticeable on wider, lower profile tyres. underinflation (common) will cause the tyres to wear at the outsides , near the sidewalls. overinflation (less common) wears tyres near the middle of the tread though this is rare, particularly with wider tyres of modern times.

if you are a good maintainer of your car, and your tyres are inflated properly (usually between 32-40 psi for our cars depending on your wheel/tyre choice and how you like to drive) then the major factor in tyre wear will be alignment.

[gldgti]

if you find your passenger side tyre is worn on the outside of the tyre more than anywhere else, and your drivers side tyre is similar but not quite as bad, you might find that you have too much TOE IN. this also makes the steering feel more responsive, but the car may understeer more easily. also, you might find that the lock/lock steering weight is uneven or heavy (doing U-turns and parking). tyre tread edges will feel sharp pointing inwards.

Generally, for road use, a mk1 golf is happiest with neutral toe - that is , the wheels pointing straight ahead. this is also true of later models. it is the most optimal situation for tyre wear and also gives the steering the best feel and weight.

too much toe out can be easily recognised - tyres will wear on the insides. feel for sharp edges on the tread edges pointing outwards. also, the car will have good front wheel grip through corners and may hold on very well, but the steering will be less responsive and you will need to turn the wheel further to get the same cornering effect.

IMPORTANT NOTE - toe changes dramatically with camber adjustment, but toe adjustment will not alter the camber!

[gldgti]

camber adjustment is very easy to feel while driving.

uneven camber adjustment is what causes your car to pull to one side. the car will always pull in the direction of the most positive camber.

a golf should be set up (from the manual) with between 0.3 to 0.5 degrees negative camber. so lets say your car pulls left, this means that you need either 1) less negative (more positive) on the drivers side wheel or 2) more negative (less positive) on the passenger side wheel to correct the problem.

once the camber is equal on both sides, on a flat road the car will drive straight.

annoyingly, most alignments include making your camber uneven so that your car pulls to the right ever so slightly, to account for the fall away in most roads for drainage. this is a little silly since its different for all the roads and from one corner to the next and it never feels right. once you drive a car with the camber just right, you'll never want to go back.

large camber angles can cause uneven tyre wear but it is not nearly as pronounced as that caused by excessive toe. providing your vehicle toe is correct, camber angles up to 2 degrees should not significantly change the wear of your tyre (on a small car like a golf anyway)

[gldgti]

once the camber is equal, there are things you can look for to feel camber change.

negative camber will have a similar effect to steering feel as toe in - quicker response, more direct feel, more accurate steering.

positive camber provides nearly the opposite effect. less response, indirect feel.

generally, negative camber will increase cornering grip. positive camber will not.

without being excessive, you would like to have a reasonable amount of negative camber on the front of a golf. this generally helps improve the overall handling balance of the car, with more grip on the front and better steering feel.

[gldgti]

im going to bed - this will be completed later.

cheers

aydan

[MattyT]

Very informative! Needs diagrams for those of us who are visual more then literary folk (or perhaps just plain dyslexic, like me)

[rayray086]

Great write-up Aydan! This should be of use to all of us - as car enthusiasts, I believe we should understand how our cars sit and function.

I found CarBibles to be quite a good read. The Wheel and Tyre article should be of some relevance in this topic!

[Oneofthegreats]

I'll say there's lots of good reading & info there, but.

In general with older model FWD cars(pre mid 80's) you set the toe, to toe out alittle. Only a couple of minutes due to the front wheels trying to pull in on themselve's on the front face when driving forward.
Newer cars have better suspension technology & don't twist up nor have the same problem.
A new Mini has +18 minute's of total toe on the front
A mk4 golf has +10 mins of total toe on the front but has 20 mins on the back.

The toe angle can change by upto 30 mins in the forward rotating direction of a none driven wheel. Imagine how much a driven wheel ,FWD or on a non-live axle car can move.

As far as camber goes, 2 degree's is way too much on a street car & will kill your tyres.

Have a look at how much negative camber is on the back of a mk1 golf (not by choice, but by VW) & that's alittle bit over -1 degree.

To put it into perspective a M3 only has -1 & 20 minutes camber on the front & -1 & 45 min's on the back.
A M3 CSL has -1 & 45 mins Front & -1 & 50mins Back & that's basically an all out race car.

[gldgti]

your right - 2 degrees is too much for street, but you can't adjust the camber on a golf to that without modifying the strut or having a special strut anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

with regard to toe - this DIY will not involve direct measurement of camber or toe, and will rely of steering feel and handling dynamics. hence, getting the toe "right" may be making it slightly positive to account for suspension twist etc.